Anna and the French Kiss

Anna and the French Kiss, by Stephanie Perkins, is decidedly a girl book. That doesn't make it bad, of course, it's just something to be aware of. The novel is, structurally at least, pretty standard fare in the world of YA lit. It's about a teenage girl who is sent off to Paris to a boarding school to complete her senior year of high school. At first she is miserable about leaving her friends and a budding romance behind, but once she gets used to Paris she falls in love...and not just with the city.

What immediately impressed me about this book was the care with which it had been written. The plot evolved delicately, and the characters demonstrated marked growth throughout the novel. The writing wasn't sloppy or hasty, and it demonstrated a maturity and confidence on the part of the author that I found very refreshing. What's even more impressive is that Stephanie Perkins is, for all intents and purposes, an amateur writer. This book was birthed during NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. Despite its rushed origins, however, the book is polished and complete. In fact, I believe the level of writing is superior to several of the books I've recently read by prominent authors, particularly Dash and Lily's Book of Dares. Though still unproven in many ways, I believe Stephanie Perkins has the raw talent and the attention to detail to become a truly excellent novelist.

My main problem with the novel is not the writing itself, but the plot. Though in the first portions of the novel the plot develops in a satisfying manner, complicating itself enough to stay interesting but not so much so as to become convoluted, it became overly simplistic as the novel reached its conclusion. Essentially things just sort of ran out of steam towards the end. It wasn't an unsatisfying novel, but the ending was rather predictable, and I felt it to be too conventional. Stephanie Perkins could have gone several different ways with the ending, but she just took the easy way out. This is fine, but is ultimately the reason that I think Anna and the French Kiss will remain a girl book rather than a book that a wider audience can enjoy. It was just a little too pleasing in the final analysis, and didn't demand enough of the reader or the characters to create lasting meaning. The novel's moral force fizzled in a wave of sentimentality. What's truly unfortunate here isn't that the ending was bad, it just wasn't as good as I was expecting it to be given how excellent the first half of the novel was.

On the whole this book is enjoyable, easy to read, and more carefully crafted than many other popular works of YA lit. It is, however, ultimately a fairly shallow book that demands little from its readers and offers little in return outside of a few hours of pleasant entertainment.

Score: 7/10
Read this book if: You like sappy romance stories, are enchanted by the romance of Paris, or are a teenage girl of any sort.
Don't read this book if: You are looking for a story that will take you on a meaningful emotional journey, or that demands a little work on your part to be fully enjoyed.